Ferguson v Paisley

8:50PM BST 15 Apr 2001

MANCHESTER UNITED'S seventh Premiership title in nine years means Sir Alex Ferguson has overtaken Bob Paisley as the game's most successful manager.

Ferguson had been level with the legendary former Liverpool manager on 13 major prizes but has nudged ahead of him in his penultimate season in charge at Old Trafford. He has won seven League titles, one European Cup, four FA Cups, one League Cup and one European Cup Winners' Cup.

He is the first manager to win seven League titles and the first to claim three championships in a row.

Paisley collected six League titles during his nine years in charge at Anfield. He retired at Liverpool two-thirds of the way through their treble and it was left to his successor, Joe Fagan, to claim the third title.

Paisley is the only manager to have won three European Cups. The Paisley camp will also argue his three triumphs in 1977, 1978 and 1981 came when only the champions of each country and the cup holders entered the competition. United qualified as runners-up in 1999 when they won the treble. In the Seventies and Eighties there was no safety net of the group phases; if a side lost over two legs they were out.

Ferguson's supporters could counter that the Champions League is much harder to win, and whoever triumphs in Milan in the final on May 23 will have come through 17 games.

When Paisley won his first European Cup, Liverpool had to play nine games and they did not have to play the likes of Juventus, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich season after season.

Ferguson could yet emulate Paisley and win three European Cups as United are still in this season's competition and he will have another crack next season in his final campaign.

Ferguson also started from a lower base level than Paisley and has won two League and FA Cup doubles and one treble, which the former Liverpool manager never achieved.

Indeed Ferguson has won four FA Cups - again another record - while that remains the one glaring omission from Paisley's glittering CV.

The best he managed was in 1977, when his side were beaten by Tommy Docherty's United in the final.